


Useless

by isthatbloodonhisshirt (wasterella)



Series: Sterek A-Z Challenge [21]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Blood, Derek can't have nice things, Gunshot Wounds, M/M, Self-Hatred, cliffhanger ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-11-09 03:45:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11096214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wasterella/pseuds/isthatbloodonhisshirt
Summary: After years of dancing around each other. After years of fighting and saving one another and trusting each other. Derek had finally asked him. He’d asked him why he still stuck around. Why he helped Derek lick his wounds when he was hurt. Why he ran to save Derek again and again whenever he needed it.Why Stiles had stopped, why he had hesitated, before running in to save Scott while Derek had been dying.“Because I love you, Sourwolf,” Stiles had said, punching him in the arm. “Isn’t it obvious?”





	Useless

**Author's Note:**

> Teen Wolf (c) Jeff Davis

Derek was having a hard time right then, mostly because Lydia was crying. No matter how many times he told her to stop, she couldn’t seem to manage it, but it was making it difficult for him to hear Stiles’ heartbeat.

He kept worrying the reason he couldn’t hear it was because it was no longer there, but every few seconds when Lydia would inhale shakily between sobs, he would hear the very faint thump of it in Stiles’ chest and he could breathe again for that one split second he heard it.

Light eyes rose to where Lydia was pressing down hard on the wound in Stiles’ chest, blood coating her hands, and more sobs escaping her. She had twigs in her hair, and her makeup was running, but she didn’t seem to care.

Everyone looked like shit, but nobody seemed to care.

Scott was a little ways down the road, yelling into his phone and pacing back and forth, one hand in his hair and tugging. Derek focussed back on what he was doing, pain racing up his arms from the black lines snaking their way up beneath his skin.

It hurt. A lot. The pain was agonizing and he wanted to take a break, but he didn’t dare. He worried that the only reason Stiles was still breathing was because he couldn’t feel the pain. Derek didn’t want to risk letting him go and having the shock of the pain kill him.

He could feel panic beginning to rise in his chest, because it had been too long. Much too long. Blood was still trickling between Lydia’s fingers no matter how hard she pressed down, and Stiles’ breathing was so shallow that he risked stopping at any moment.

Derek felt his fangs itching at his gums, nails already long since having turned into claws at the mere memory of how this had happened.

Scott had been faster than him at taking the hunter down, but Derek had been the one to rip his throat out. Stiles wasn’t a threat, and he wasn’t even a Werewolf. When unknown hunters showed up, they always tried to make trouble for the pack. It had never worked, Chris Argent had always been quick to diffuse any and all situations.

But he wasn’t here this time. The hunter had threatened them. Stiles had been mouthy. The hunter had shot him. Derek had killed him.

Apparently this hunter had the same ideals as Kate and Gerard Argent. A wolf was a wolf, didn’t matter if they broke the code or not. Well, Derek had broken the code, but he doubted Chris Argent would blame him.

Malia and Liam had gone to get rid of the body before the police arrived. God knew when that would be, considering it felt like it had been hours since this had happened. How long before help arrived? How much longer did Stiles have?

Derek felt his lungs constricting, panic rising more steadily now. This was his fault. Everything was his fault. He wasn’t allowed to have anything, he wasn’t allowed to be happy. Having Stiles had been... his everything.

After years of dancing around each other. After years of fighting and saving one another and trusting each other. Derek had finally asked him. He’d asked him why he still stuck around. Why he helped Derek lick his wounds when he was hurt. Why he ran to save Derek again and again whenever he needed it.

Why Stiles had stopped, why he had hesitated, before running in to save Scott while Derek had been dying.

“Because I love you, Sourwolf,” Stiles had said, punching him in the arm. “Isn’t it obvious?”

Derek didn’t know what kind of love it was back then. He’d thought friendship, because all friends told one another they loved each other. He’d assumed it wasn’t romantic. And maybe, back then, it hadn’t been. Maybe after he’d said the words was when both of them had slowly started to change.

Stiles showed up at the loft to hang out more often. Derek picked him up and dropped him off at school when his Jeep was in the shop. They started texting more. It was a gradual thing, happening so subtly neither of them had even noticed until Stiles’ dad had taken Derek aside one night and informed him that if he hurt his son, he had wolfsbane bullets in the garage and he knew how to use a gun.

That was when Derek realized that he was in love with Stiles. That he cared about him, wanted to spend time with him, _be_  with him. That was when he’d admitted it, when he’d kissed him, when everything had seemed perfect for once in his miserable life.

That had been a week ago. One stupid week of happiness, and now this. Stiles shot and bleeding to death in the middle of the road, Derek with a man’s blood on his hands, Lydia sobbing while trying to keep him alive.

Derek heard sirens approaching, but they were still so far off. He didn’t know what to do anymore. He didn’t know how to help Stiles. He wanted to pick him up and just run to the hospital with him, wanted to get him help _now_ , but he couldn’t. All he could do was sit there, leeching his pain, praying it was enough.

Derek wasn’t allowed to have nice things. He wasn’t allowed to be happy. And nobody had ever made him as happy as Stiles did, so he should’ve known this would happen. If he was to be destroyed, the easiest way to do that was to deprive him of the one thing in his life he had left to live for.

The sheriff arrived first. His car skid to a halt right in front of Scott, almost hitting him. He threw open the car door, practically shoved Scott out of his way, and ran to where Stiles was lying on the asphalt, Lydia still sobbing and pressing against the gunshot wound, Derek at his other side holding his hand with both of his own and taking all of his pain.

Stiles’ father fell to his knees beside Stiles, tears in his eyes and agony etched into the lines of his face. He looked like a broken man. He looked how Derek felt in that moment. Like everything that had ever mattered in his life was being taken away from him.

The ambulance appeared moments later, and Derek held on to Stiles as long as he could until the paramedics were close enough to see the lines. Only then did he let go and step aside so that others could work on him.

He watched helplessly from a foot away, Scott hugging Lydia beside him while she held her hands out, crying even harder, presumably at the knowledge that it was _Stiles’_  blood on her hands. Like she thought it would never come off.

Derek watched the paramedics rip off Stiles’ shirt, cover the wound, strap him down to a gurney. He watched them load him into the ambulance while his father scrambled in after them. He watched the ambulance drive away, lights flashing, siren blaring.

And he stood there, in the road, hands covered in blood, feeling useless.

He couldn’t save his family. He couldn’t save his pack. He couldn’t save Stiles.

The three of them stood there while police officers roped off the scene. When someone came to take their statements, Parrish inserted himself into the interrogation and took over, the other officer disappearing to assist someone else with roping off the area.

He didn’t know why Parrish was bothering trying to get anything out of them. Lydia was still crying, Scott was hyperventilating, and Derek was... in shock. He remembered this feeling from when his family had died. He was fairly certain it was shock.

Parrish seemed to know he wouldn’t get a straight answer out of any of them, so he told them to get out of there and he’d find them at the hospital later. Nobody stopped them when they went to leave.

Scott left Lydia with Derek because someone had to drive Stiles’ Jeep. Derek took her in the Camaro, the three of them making their way to the hospital. They made it to the parking lot before realizing two of them were covered in blood. Scott went ahead while Derek drove Lydia to the loft.

He let her use the shower while he cleaned himself up in the kitchen sink. He could hear her crying even over the sound of water hitting tile. He stood at the sink, staring at the pink-tinted water swirling down the drain, and felt his chest constrict.

Stiles was injured. Stiles might be dead. And Derek couldn’t do anything about it. He couldn’t do _anything_  about it.

For the second time in his young life, Derek felt so utterly, helplessly _useless_ , and he swore to himself, no matter what, that he would _never_  allow himself to feel this way again.

He waited for Lydia to dress in some of his clothes, and then they headed back for the hospital. Stiles was going to be all right, because if he wasn’t, the hunters of the world would know the name Derek Hale, because he would kill every last fucking one of them.

**END.**


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